Working memory capacity, strategic allocation of study time, and value-directed remembering

To further elucidate the relationship between working memory capacity (WMC) and long-term memory (LTM), the present study investigated how individual differences in WMC relate to strategic encoding and subsequent retrieval in a self-regulated value-directed remembering paradigm. Participants were given 2 min to study lists of words that varied in explicit value and then were asked to freely recall the words they had just studied. In Experiment 1, participants were not given any guidance on effective encoding strategies. The strategy that led to the highest point totals was to ignore the low-value items altogether , and high-WMC participants were more likely to use this strategy. In Experiment 2, half of participants received an instruction on how to best allocate their study time at the beginning of the task, and half received this instruction after three of the six lists. Equating participants on the use of an effective strategy from the beginning of the task eliminated WMC-related differences in task performance. Together the results support the conclusion that low-WMC individuals spontaneously use effective encoding strategies less often than high-WMC individuals. But when instructed to do so, WMC-related differences are greatly attenuated. Therefore, one of the major reasons for the WMC-LTM relationship seems to be the differential development and execution of task-appropriate strategies during encoding of to-be-remembered information. Introduction At nearly every moment in our waking lives, we are bombarded with an abundance of information. But both our time and attention are limited. Therefore, we attend to what is important to us and we devote our time in a similar goal-directed manner. This process is not perfect. Occasionally we are captured by irrelevant information in the environment and by irrelevant internal thoughts (i.e., mind-wandering), and we occasionally waste time. But we are largely adaptive in the use of our time and mental energy. Although we all have this skill, people differ substantially in how they choose to devote their time and attention, as well as how well they maintain and execute their goals. The maintenance and execution of such goals is a crucial determinant of working memory capacity (WMC), an important individual difference at the cognitive level that correlates with a host of other important cogni-especially in contexts where our attention is demanded by the task at hand. Another instance in which WMC seems to be important is long-term memory (LTM). Prior studies have shown that